"Even the term 'Artificial Intelligence' itself is widely misused, with conceptual unclarity coopted to advance industry agendas ... It is our task to demystify and to challenge 'AI' in our teaching, research and in our engagement with society." openletter.earth/open-letter-...

BREAKING: Democrats have *flipped* a seat in Georgia's state House tonight. Democrat Eric Gisler has won the seat, which was previously held by a Republican who resigned this fall. This is a red territory: Trump won the district by 13% in 2024.

This is actually a good example of why the customer model is wrong. I wouldn't have chosen poetry writing, but UNC made me take a class. And it absolutely made me become a much better writer, with an eye to concision and an ear now trained to the rhythm of words. I'm a better historian as a result.

Rand Paul: "It has not been the history of the US to kill people who are out of combat. Even if there is a war, which most of us dispute -- that a bunch of people who are unarmed allegedly running drugs is a war -- we still don't kill people when they're incapacitated ... it's illegal and immoral."

Despite what you hear from fossil fuel-funded politicians, the U.K has just generated a record amount of clean, domestic wind energy. Enough to power 23 million homes! U.K decarbonisation policy is a recipe for energy security.

Wow -- Russia reportedly plotted last year to plant bombs on US-bound flights (gift link) giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Rand Paul: "This is an insane policy. It's inconsistent. It's not war. It's not the way we've ever done this. If we can blow up a boat in the ocean, what about when they get to Miami & put it in a truck? Can you shoot a grenade launcher at the truck? No! We arrest people b/c sometimes we're wrong."

More than 200 environmental groups want Congress to halt development of new data centers in the U.S., citing energy and water consumption: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

FOX: Interim U.S. Attorney for the state of New Jersey, Alina Habba has resigned. Attorney General Pam Bondi says she accepted the resignation after a court's decision disqualifying Habba from serving.

To be clear: the new, near-exclusive emphasis on natural causes of climate change on the U.S. EPA's website is now completely out of synch with all available evidence demonstrating overwhelming human influence on contemporary warming trends.

It appears that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has, within the past week, scrubbed a large amount of climate change content from its official website, as well as *removed human-caused warming* from the discussion on its "causes of climate change" page.

UPDATE: Another Chicago-area church has put up an immigration-themed Nativity scene. A church member at Urban Village Church sent this one along, where Mary, Joseph and Jesus are gone and replaced with a sign that reads: “Due to ICE activity in our community, the Holy Family is in hiding.”

Read this: www.wgbh.org/news/local/2...

From the @wsj.com chief foreign correspondent

Utah lawmakers are planning to convene in an unexpected special session this Tuesday. Why? To move the filing deadline for congressional candidates, to give the GOP more time to appeal the ruling that created a Dem seat. www.abc4.com/news/politic...

When the House and Senate marked up stablecoin legislation, we raised all of these concerns - their anonymity, their nearly perfect design for money laundering. All the barn doors were left wide open. It’s used for crime because that is its purpose. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/t...

Donald Trump wants to be recognized as a peacemaker. His deputies obliged today by putting his name on the headquarters of the U.S. Institute of Peace, an agency that DOGE tried to kill. The new name — the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace — "adds insult to injury," said a lawyer for USIP staff.

As long as Spotify is willing to take money from ICE, they don’t need (or deserve) free advertising for Spotify Wrapped: indivisible.org/cancel-spotify?source=bluesky

Sleepy Don

It happened again: The Trump administration has admitted illegally deporting a man to Guatemala despite an immigration judge's order that he was likely to be tortured there. A judge has ordered the administration to facilitate his return by next week.storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Sean Duffy once swore the Constitution forbade presidents from controlling Congress’s purse. Now Trump’s Transportation Secretary, he’s doing exactly that — freezing billions in state funds until the courts stop him.

“Upon reflection, Vanity Fair has concluded that Olivia is completely devoid of editing skills.”

While it's easy to grasp the antitrust and competitive apprehension about the Netflix-WBD deal, it's quite likely the least bad option facing several key parts of the company. Apocalypse, not? www.status.news/p/netflix-wa...

The man charged with planting two pipe bombs near the Democratic and Republican party headquarters on the eve of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol told the FBI he believed conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, according to two people familiar with the matter. share.google/8R7OSWfHfqP8...

Can’t keep Letitia James down — Grand jury confirmed You’d think the DOJ would be tired of losing

It's unbelievable how corrupt the Supreme Court is. It's insane that we are letting them get away with it. They are taking away all of our rights.

Religion note: Remember that pastor who was arrested protesting an ICE detention facility outside Chicago recently? The one who was photographed on the ground as officers arrested him? That's Rev. Michael Woolf, and this is his church.

*stares in Adelita Grijalva*

This is the most consequential story for the 2026 midterms. Yet, I cannot find it anywhere on legacy media. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

Oh man! This paragraph is brutal. The best thing about this review is it's not trying to be mean. It's just listing how bad the writing is.

Breaking: The US lost 32,000 jobs in November, far worse than expected. Small businesses were the hardest hit.

Susan Collins on Trump using the r-word to describe Tim Walz: “I didn't see or hear that, but so if that's accurate, which I don't know that it is, that's a very inappropriate word to be used.”

This timing makes a lot more sense now, doesn’t it? Adm. Alvin Holsey resigned in October as commander of U.S. Southern Command right after flagging concerns about those U.S. military strikes on “suspected” drug boats in the Caribbean. He served for 37 years.

RAJU: If defenseless survivors were killed, would that constitute a violation of the laws of war? MIKE JOHNSON: I'm not going to prejudge any of that. I was pretty busy yesterday. I didn't follow a lot of the news.

We are not at war with Venezuela, yet. The boats are civilian craft. The U.S. criminal code does not maintain a death penalty for drug smuggling. Due process is required before conviction or sentence. All of the 80 people killed thus far are wanton murders slain under illegal orders. All of them.

Say what you will about Napolitano but he's actually a full-fledged libertarian. That meant he was a Tea Party guy for a bit, but he wasn't kidding about all the stuff he preached.

Congressional investigation of shipwreck killings is gaining steam: "On Thursday, [Admiral Bradley] will head to Capitol Hill for closed-door sessions with lawmakers, as Republicans and Democrats express concerns about the Trump administration’s campaign." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/u...

Annnd the red shift has begun in TN. Perry County was +41% for the GOP in the early vote, but now +51%. Hickman County went from +42% GOP to +47% GOP.

RESULT: James Solomon will be the next mayor of Jersey City. Solomon, running on a more progressive lane with WFP support, has easily defeated the establishment candidate Jim McGreevey, the former governor who resigned in scandal two decades ago.

Important context: The Election Day vote in Tennessee has, in recent cycles, been a lot redder than the early vote. We're talking quite a jump. In 2024, Harris got roughly 65% of the early/mail vote in Nashville/Davidson County & 55% of the Election Day vote.

Results link for #TN07. Polls close at 8 PM ET.

It's a mini-election day in America. So, I've been on @boltsmag.org website all day long. Because that's what the rad politicos do... boltsmag.org/whats-on-the...

“the combination of wind and solar provided 15.1% more electricity than coal during the first nine months of this year… Capacity additions by solar, wind, and battery storage continue to dramatically outpace gas, coal and nuclear.” #CleanIsCheaper www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2025/12/sola...

It's great that reporting on the double tap has spotlighted the abject criminality of this Administration. But don't forget: Venezuela is not waging war on America or Americans, and the men killed were not combatants. The first strike was every bit as illegal as the second.

Maybe, just maybe, if the FBI counterterrorism desk hadn't been retasked to chasing abuelitas, somebody might've followed up on the tips...

In the novel "1984" party members watch a movie in which men are machine gunned to death in the water after their boat is sunk. The audience is encouraged to cheer it on, and they do. This is what happens when you strip away the humanity of those you consider an outgroup and an enemy.

If the Venezuelan sailors were enemy combatants, then the 2nd strike is a war crime. If the Venezuelan sailors weren’t enemy combatants, then both strikes are criminal murder. It’s that simple.

Meet two heroes of our times.

This is why this garbage is being pushed on us so hard. They want to kill intellectual curiosity and learning. www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks...

Reporters not giving up, not allowing the Trump regime to just dismiss legitimate questions with prevarication or insults, is a long overdue but promising sign.