"AI is the asbestos we're shovelling into the walls of our technological society. Our descendants will spend generations digging it out again, and the longer the bubble goes on without popping, the longer it will take to repair the damage." Good lord [positive]

Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying

It has become impossible to tell managers mesmerised by artificial intelligence that the tools are not, in fact, helpful. So employees just play along with the fiction to keep their jobs, writes our t...

thenerve.news

Phang: "Capital One said, 'We don't want the business anymore of the 45th president of the United States, his businesses, his failed sons, and his revocable trust.' So you can imagine -- I am just hypothesizing... but it suggests whatever Capital One uncovered was pretty bad. Makes you wonder..."

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trump administration has detained more than 50 spouses, parents of US troops in immigration crackdown, AP review finds.

Teaching doctors about smoking is a moral imperative. And without outside funding, it was a choice between taking the tobacco industry's money or doing nothing!

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 7h ago

“Teaching educators about AI is a ‘moral imperative’, said Randi Weingarten, the AFT president.” “And without outside funding, it was a choice between taking big tech’s money or doing nothing, she said.”

Bede's World! Bede's World! Party time! Venerable!

DOJ is now 0-20 in cases to obtain state voter files. Here is the list: Arizona California Colorado Connecticut Illinois Kentucky Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island Virginia West Virginia Wisconsin

Today in book-writng, I uncovered a story about a troupe of all-Black stage performers who showed up in a town in a fancy private Pullman car the week of a race riot started by railroad workers. I think my book's gonna be interesting.

One day, I'm going to teach a class about Vonnegut, maybe the only writer whose every published word I've managed to read. Today, while looking through a 1906 issue of The Indianapolis Freeman, I came across this ad in his hometown, for the Vonnegut Hardware Co. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vonnegu...):

if you hated covid "lockdowns" try long covid

Warning: the President of the United States is kidnapping American citizens off the streets of blue states. Some of them return —most do not. Some are murdered in concentration camps owned by the President’s cronies. All of it is one big fat crime. None of our electeds will stop him. Will you?

“Blanche Gives G.O.P. Senators Written Assurances on Trump’s I.R.S. Deal” 1/ Blanche didn’t sign the IRS assurance. 2/ There’s still a huge IRS break for the Trumps worth tens of millions of dollars. 3/ Trump could reimpose the $1.8B insurrectionist slush fund later, after Blanche gets confirmed.

Blanche Gives G.O.P. Senators Written Assurances on Trump’s I.R.S. Deal (Gift Article)

Todd Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general has been held up over concerns about a planned $1.8 billion fund for Trump allies and the president’s immunity from tax scrutiny.

nytimes.com

The reasonable response to this letter is FUCK OFF

Adam Harris@adamhsays.com · 2d ago

“The letter, which was reviewed by Bloomberg News, asks schools to publicly pledge to make sweeping changes that include reexamining admissions practices, hiring more conservative faculty, cracking down on student protests, combating grade inflation, reducing foreign donations and lowering tuition.”

So, John Cornyn and Thom Tillis. You are going to approve the guy who is under referral to the Bar, who lied to your face about the status of the terrorist slush fund, and who will be the person who authorizes your show trial? Well thought out. Goddamn, the depravity of the GOP is complete.

This doesn't get rid of the settlement that establishes the fund. That would require Donald Trump's sign-on, and he made it clear he wants the fund. All this does is rescind the DOJ's order establishing the fund. Trump can still go to court and demand the fund because the settlement remains.

Anna Bower@annabower.bsky.social · 3d ago

NEWS: Todd Blanche says he is rescinding his May 18 order establishing the “anti-weaponization fund”

To say I’m a fan of @onthemedia.bsky.social is a gross understatement. But even I heard this week’s episode and thought, “Ohmygawd, this show is unmatched.” Thank you for the amazing interview with @doctorow.pluralistic.net, @brookegladstone.bsky.social and team. pca.st/episode/caf8...

F@#$ the AI Overlords

The race to build the most advanced artificial intelligence continues to dominate the headlines. On this week’s On the Media, who does this new technology actually serve? Plus, how even critical…

pca.st

Today I discovered that the Black members of the medicine show minstrel troupe I'm researching went to see Booker T. Washington speak in Philly. That's pretty cool.

If anyone is interested I added an accreditation page to the Georgia AAUP website with info about how faculty can fight the new state-run accreditation group www.aaupgeorgia.org/policy-resou...

Georgia AAUP - Accreditation

The Georgia AAUP has joined other AAUP leaders throughout the South to fight the creation of a state-run accreditaiton agency. The Commission for Public Higher Education (CPHE) is an accrediting body ...

aaupgeorgia.org

Capital One Financial fights back over litigation tied "decision to close ‌the Trump Organization's bank accounts years ago, stating that it did so after a review by anti-money laundering experts...Marks the first time a bank has formally tied money laundering concerns" to Trump family. Via Reuters

Capital One says it closed Trump Organization's accounts after anti-money laundering probe

The disclosure marks the first time a bank has formally tied money laundering concerns to Trump's family business.

reuters.com

At a Buddy Guy concert

Those who don’t remember the past are indeed doomed to repeat it. The fascists are counting on it. But can we actually learn from our hardest histories instead? What do y’all think? 🗃️ @hcrichardson.bsky.social

Ben Railton@americanstudier.bsky.social · last wk.

I know it was 4000 news cycles ago, but earlier this month the administration released a 162-page attack on the Smithsonian, featuring an argument that the Chinese Exclusion Act wasn’t based on racism. That pissed me off. My new column on the white supremacist hate & violence that built to the Act.🗃️

I revised a chapter today. I write as things come to me. If I get stuck while writing, I move on to something else I know I'll have to write anyway. This leaves my first drafts sorta disorganized. But man, that first reorganization is satisfying because you start to see the sucker in its final form.

Re-upping this six year old article. For no particular reason... #ScienceUnderSiege www.newsweek.com/climate-scie...

Climate Scientists Feel Your Pain, Dr. Fauci

I, too, have received death threats. I, too, have endured attacks from those who feel threatened by science. Yet we cannot submit to the forces of politics and profit. The stakes are too high.

newsweek.com

Everything is awful.

Julian Sanchez@normative.bsky.social · 7d ago

Utter crackpot. No actual historical training, and real academic historians (even quite conservative ones) pretty uniformly regard him as a charlatan. But he’s become VERY popular with right-wing politicians for spinning a revisionist (and imaginary) version of US history they find appealing.

Teacher Required To Provide Own Salary https://theonion.com/teacher-required-to-provide-own-salary/

I don't know. Some days I think the occasional congressional caning might be appropriate.

This is why they’re going after Dr Fauci: he impeded grifters

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last wk.

Peter Navarro: "I had a million doses of hydroxychloroquine in warehouses as the defense policy coordinator that I was trying to distribute to hospitals. And Fauci got the FDA stop me from doing that."

by way of idle wishful thinking - would be great if NYT hired a science writer/thinker for the op-ed page to tell us what’s happening and what’s at stake in the sciences, at a time when they are under attack in a way Galileo would recognize, while newspaper science journalism is facing extinction