Author: nick

“And there are those who claim that Big Data will supplant Sapiens and drag him helplessly along like a straw in the mighty flow of information. We will then be close to knowing almost everything we don’t need to know.” – Roberto Calasso, The Unnamable Present, 2017 Onerous it is and more onerous it will be when AI relieves us of the burden of knowing anything except how to ask AI the answers to everything. The weight of thinking for oneself, reading books, and living in natural reality will be lifted. Siri, Alexa, and the other AI assistants will usher us conveniently…

Mother and daughter at Lebanese-American protest in DC against bombing of Lebanon in 2006. Israel’s bombing of Lebanon has reportedly killed more than a thousand civilians this year.  Israel also drove out more than a half million civilians from southern Lebanon as part of an effort to confiscate or ravage that territory. The New York Times reports that Israel is “applying the Gaza model in Lebanon,” destroying entire towns and villages and leaving the rubble uninhabitable.  Israel’s bombing has been so indiscriminate that even President Trump pretended to object. On Truth Social, Trump announced: “Israel will not be bombing Lebanon…

Photograph Source: Mark Warner – CC BY 2.0 Of all the really stupid prosecutions Trump and his Department of Justice have pursued since he became the despot in chief, the charges against former FBI Director James Comey, are the most ridiculous. On Tuesday, April 28, Comey was indicted over a photo of seashells on the shore, officials said threatened President Donald Trump. The indictment was handed down by a grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina where Comey allegedly took the photo and made the threat by posting it on the internet, in interstate commerce.[i] According to a…

A new bill in Minnesota, proposed by eight Democratic lawmakers, would cut state funding by 10 percent to any city or county that flies the old state flag instead of the new one adopted in 2024. The idea comes from state Rep. Mike Freiberg (D–Golden Valley), who is upset that some cities are still using the old design and turning the flag change into a “culture war.” He says the old flag, which depicted a farmer and an Indian on a horse, was “not only kind of boring but also kind of racist.” Several cities, including Inver Grove Heights, Elk…

The Daily Grail news briefs are always a good way to interrogate your worldview… A new big database of DNA from indigenous Americans shakes up scientists’ theories about human settlement of South America. Trump drops hints of what’s coming in new batch of UFO files set for release. Ah yes, the famously trustworthy information source that is Donald Trump… US Cold War operation used ‘vampire’ folklore to intimidate Philippine insurgents in the 1950s. Archaeologists unearth ‘advanced’ gold dental bridge in medieval Scottish grave. Reality emerges: Particles are nature’s smallest constituents, but that doesn’t mean they’re fundamental – so what is…

Photograph Source: Dnjka4444 – CC0 The liberal left again adopted a self‑defeating posture during the recent fuel and cost‑of‑living protests in Ireland. Instead of supporting the protesters or attempting to engage with them, they stood on the sidelines criticising. The republican left broadly supported the movement. But that section of the left whose support base is largely urban middle‑class – the Greens, the Social Democrats and the Labour Party – refused to support this largely spontaneous movement. Why this refusal? For the parties that withheld support, it is clear from their middle‑class base that they do not wish to challenge…

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair Tuesday 7 April. It was an evening much like any other. At 9pm French TV channels were airing a game show, a repeat of Kitchen Nightmares and, on the Franco-German channel Arte, a documentary soberly titled Europe in Putin’s Grip? (since tracking the Russian threat is its favourite occupation). The day itself, however, had been far from ordinary. A few hours earlier, Donald Trump had posted an exceptionally violent warning on Truth Social: ‘A whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again.’ The civilisation he was referring to was that of Iran…

It was great fun while it lasted. It certainly was elegant, exclusive, and attended by men who were gentlemen and women who were ladies. Society beauties like Cee Zee Guest, Babe Paley, Natalie Cushing and their ilk were regulars. It was run by Pat Buckley, William F.’s better half, and she kept the level exclusive and high. It celebrated artistry and beauty, and attendants paid for it with pleasure. I remember introducing the author Walter Isaacson to Cee Zee, and how impressed with her ethereal elegance and looks the writer was; he told me so. And the lady in question…

U.S. and Iran Trade Fire, Shaking 4-Week Ceasefire Source link

As the U.S. and Iran struggle to find common ground on which to build an agreement during the ceasefire, the Gulf Cooperation Council met in Saudi Arabia last week for the first time since the war began. They focused on Iranian attacks on their member states. They condemned both the attacks and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and called on Iran to rebuild trust. The leaders discussed the need to enhance military coordination but also on the need to coordinate “in pursuit of a diplomatic path forward to preserve the security and stability of the region.” These nations—Bahrain,…